Dear Friends of FAIR,
FAIR is delighted to announce that John Wood Jr. has joined FAIR’s Board of Directors.
John is no stranger to this community. He has served on FAIR’s Board of Advisors, lending his counsel, his platform, and his considerable moral clarity to our work. In stepping into a governing role, he deepens a relationship that has already shaped how we think about our mission.
For those meeting John for the first time: he spent years as National Ambassador for Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan bridge-building organization. He is a former Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County and a former Congressional nominee. He hosts The John Wood Jr. Show, and his writing on race, faith, politics, and civic life has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Quillette, The Washington Examiner, and elsewhere. He advises The American Project and 1776 Unites, and is a member of the Progress Network and the New Pluralists Collaborative.
What connects all of John’s work is a single, stubborn conviction that he has spent his career defending: that Americans who disagree profoundly can still find common ground, and that the work of proving this is the most urgent civic task of our time. John argues this position with passion and rigor to audiences on both sides of the political and cultural divide, where it is often unwelcome. He epitomizes the disposition FAIR wants in its governance.
John’s appointment to FAIR’s Board arrives at a pivotal moment. He recently left his role at Braver Angels to found The OmniAmerican Society.
The OmniAmerican Society begins as a Substack, but John’s ambition for it is considerably larger. Over the next five years, he intends to build a multimedia network — podcasts, video, journalism, even music production — designed to do two things at once.
The first is narrative. Omni exists to drive a new story of American culture, identity, and politics into the mainstream of our national conversation. In John’s words, the goal is to “redefine the mainstream itself.”
The second is engagement. Omni’s network is meant to serve as a front door, bringing Americans from across the political and cultural spectrum into direct contact with the organizations working to repair our country’s frayed relationships on the ground.
John frames the project with an analogy worth sitting with. A student of the Civil Rights Movement, he observes that the movement operated along two dimensions: method and narrative. The marches, the sit-ins, the boycotts, the freedom rides were the methods; the story of an America transformed and carried by Dr. King into the nation’s aroused conscience was the narrative.
That narrative reached Americans through the new media of its era. Television was still in its infancy in the 1960s, young, but it brought the moral drama of Selma and Birmingham into living rooms across the country. Without it, the aroused conscience of the nation might never have been moved.
Today’s new media are online: podcasts, video channels, and social platforms. John’s argument is that the movement for pluralism and civic repair has built a great deal of method but comparatively little narrative. The vehicle has yet to be built.
This is where we see opportunity.
FAIR has created the method through our chapters in communities across the country, legal advocacy, and a growing body of work in education, including our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum. What we have less of is reach: the ability to place our case before Americans who have never heard of FAIR and have no particular reason to come looking for us.
A venture built to drive attention toward civic repair and an organization built to give people something concrete to do with that attention fit together naturally. Omni can carry the story, and FAIR can offer the on-ramp: a chapter to join, a petition to sign, a curriculum to bring to a school board.
The alignment is clear, the relationship is strong, and the conversation about what we might build together has already begun. We will keep you posted as it develops.
We are grateful that a person of John’s experience and caliber has chosen to invest more deeply in FAIR. Please join us in welcoming him. And we encourage you to follow The OmniAmerican Society on Substack. What John is building deserves an audience, and we would like ours to be part of it.
With gratitude,
Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR
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How Colorado and Other States Are Testing Parental Authority, Free Speech, Child Welfare, and Clinical Professions
This will be the first in a two part series intended to highlight new laws that breach our Constitutional rights. Colorado has passed a series of laws that many parents, clinicians, and citizens believe undermine parental authority, chill free speech, place children at risk, and degrade the mental health and medical professions. In this first webinar of the Constitutional Rights Series, four leaders on the front lines will examine how these policies are playing out in real time—and what is at stake for families and free expression.
Featured speakers:
State Representative Brandi Bradley will discuss the steady erosion of parental rights in Colorado and the legislation she has championed to restore them.
Dr. Travis Morrell, Senior Fellow at Do No Harm, sees first-hand how bad medicine morphs into laws that impinge on civil rights.
Dr. Eddie Waldrep, clinical psychologist, will address how therapists are increasingly pressured into self-censorship and why the practice of therapy itself is at risk.
Erin Lee, co-founder of Protect Kids Colorado, will outline three ballot initiatives appearing before Colorado voters this November that offer a direct opportunity to strengthen protections for children’s well-being.
Join us for a clear-eyed look at the legislative landscape and the concrete paths still available to defend the rights of all Coloradans and Americans as we use one state as a case study of what to do when the state and federal laws conflict with each other.
Date: September 15, 2026
Time: 7:00 EST
Practical Paths for Citizens Defending their Constitutional Rights
When state statutes clash with the U.S. Constitution and federal law, ordinary citizens are left asking a practical question: What can we actually do? This second webinar in the Constitutional Rights Series moves from diagnosis to action, examining both the legal roots of the problem and the lawful tools available to protect individual rights.
Featured speakers:
James Kerwin of the Center for Individual Rights will explain how Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act has become the legal foundation for recent laws that elevate group identity over individual rights and free speech.
Leigh Ann O’Neill of America First Policy Institute will walk through concrete, practical steps citizens can take to safeguard their constitutional protections when state policy conflicts with higher law.
Monica Harris
This session is designed for parents, professionals, and engaged Coloradans and all Americans who want clarity on the legal terrain and realistic next steps for defending their rights.
Date: September 17, 2026
Time: 7:00 EST
FAIR in Conversation is Back!
What is the difference between the isms? Socialism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism…
The United States was founded on a constitutional system that places individual liberty, limited government, and the rule of law at its center. Yet throughout history, competing political philosophies, including socialism and communism, have offered very different answers to fundamental questions about the relationship between the individual, the state, property, equality, and freedom.
How different are these competing visions? Can they coexist within America’s constitutional framework? And what do we actually mean when we use labels like communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism, and democracy?
Whether you believe communism represents a growing influence in American life, think the concern is overstated, or simply want a deeper understanding of the issues, this conversation is designed to encourage thoughtful discussion rather than partisan talking points.
Sessions will be virtual, open to all FAIR members, and designed to be as accessible as they are substantive. You don’t need to have read anything in advance. Just bring your curiosity, your willingness to listen, and your commitment to engage in good faith.
. Sessions will run monthly through September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!
Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening, rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!